MOSCOW, December 17 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian Space Agency said Saturday it had postponed the launch of the European navigation satellite from December 26 to December 28, 2005.
The agency said the launch had been postponed at the request of the project operator, Russian-European joint venture Starsem.
A Soyuz-FG launch vehicle is to take the first European satellite under the Galileo project into orbit from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan.
Galileo will be Europe's own global navigation satellite system, providing highly accurate global positioning service under civilian control. It will operate in conjunction with GPS and Glonass, the two other global satellite navigation systems.